Africa blogging roundup 14th August 2008

Gay Uganda
http://gayuganda.blogspot.com/2008/08/moment-of-insight.html

Gay Uganda in this powerful post, explains why he has chosen to attend a meeting of religious leaders and members of the LGBTI community to discuss HIV/AIDS. He speaks of his decision to speak out against hate speech, his loss of faith and the bitterness of his lover towards the Catholic church.
“I talked about my loss of faith, a subject I didn’t want to touch, but touched, in the heat of the moment. I talked of the anger in the community when the archbishop intimated we wanted to kill him. Yes, we do want to kill him, because of his lies, and his hate of us. That may be true now, it was not true before…..
I talked of my lover’s bitterness. He is gay, and a catholic, and with the siege on his faith by our religious leaders, he is no longer attending mass. And seeks a congregation that affirms him. And though in my pride I refuse to acknowledge any pain on my part, his pain does touch me.”

Kubatana Net
http://kubatanablogs.net/kubatana/?p=741

Kubatana writes on the need for women to be included in discussions over the future of Zimbabwe and the formation of a new group “Envision Zimbabwe Women’s Trust” whose objectives are to
“to agitate for accountability through seeking dialogue with existing power structures in order to address the various challenges affecting Zimbabweans, especially women. The group is also driven by a desire to bring perpetrators of violence to justice.
Envision Zimbabwe will be central in the process of conflict transformation through playing the intermediary role of presenting issues on the ground to relevant authorities as well as brokering the space for dialogue among all relevant stakeholders that is crucial for the realization of resolution to conflict.”

The Advocacy Project
http://www.advocacynet.org/blogs/index.php?blog=110&blog=110&title=voices_of_kenya_s_vulnerable_children_an&page=1&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1&disp=single

The Advocacy Project has launched an excellent blogging and photography project for street children in Kenya enabling them to tell their life stories and post photographs. At present there are 17 participants and each has set up their own blog (the list of blogs is on the Project site and the photos are on flickr.com).
“The workshops began with an introduction to blogging and photography, going over the basics of what makes a good blog and photo. Then we went out to take photos as a group and uploaded them from the camera to the computer and put them on a flash drive. Meanwhile, the students were writing, editing and sharing their first blogs on their own and in class. Once the pictures and first blogs were complete, we ventured to the Internet café to type the blogs, create email accounts, blogging accounts and Flickr accounts. Once the accounts were created, they posted their material online on their own pages”.

The Glory O’ Nigeria
http://aderinola.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/nigerias-fake-anticorruption-war

The Glory O’ Nigeria expresses his anger at the lack of consistency and honesty within Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign which he describes as a “fake war”
“Imagine this, Babangida is alleged to have stolen more than 12 billion dollars. If the allegation is wrong, we’ll never know because he has not given an account (at least not a public one) of how Nigeria’s finances was managed during the gulf war.
The result of this insincerity and fake war on corruption is that we still have more than 90 million Nigerians who don’t know what the next meal would look like. The result also included inability to sustain good and qualitative education. It extends to Nigerian highways listed among the worst in the world. More than 400 people will die on the road today!”

Mostly Maurice
http://mostlymaurice.blogspot.com/2008/08/poor-kiyovu.html

Bulldozing of the poor in Africa to make way for homes for the rich under the guise of “urban regeneration” is becoming more and more of a global phenomena. From India to Zimbabwe, South Africa and the USA governments are bent on making the poor even more invisible by moving them out of sight of the sensibilities of the wealthier classes and foreigners. In this post, Mostly Maurice reports on the demolition of an informal settlement in Rwandan capital, Kigali.
“The City of Kigali has decided that poor people don't belong in the central residential district, Kiyovu. The area known as "Poor Kiyovu", to differentiate it from "Rich Kiyovu", has now been almost completely bulldozed. The displaced residents will be compensated according to a government valuation of their land. The government is presumably trying to make way for new urban developments. It is turning the heart of the city into a reserve for the rich and destroying its social and cultural diversity.”

Black Looks
http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/08/nigeria_progress_is_nigh.html

Black Looks also reports on the bulldozing of the poor, this time in Nigeria. She links the demolitions to make way for homes for the rich to that of the increasing number of bankers and financiers who are returning to the country.
“Nigeria’s “high rollers” return home in a rush of “reverse brain drain”. Meanwhile property prices for the elite reach US highs at the expense of bulldozing the poor to make way for $million homes for the new high rollers in business suits. This crew of new patriots are apparently abandoning regular power supplies and fresh water on tap for the opportunity to create their own lifestyles in Lagos and Abuja.
Meanwhile the property market is also booming and bulldozing the poor (including the hawkers selling the DVDs as above) to make room for homes for the rich (bankers and distributors) is all part of progress and the New Nigeria.”

* Sokari Ekine blogs at www.blacklooks.org

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